20 January 2004

comic strip

Back to school (Ozy's summer vacation)
Originally published 2 June 2001

The Sidewalk Cafe, where Llewellyn and Ms. Mudd hang out, is named for a coffee shop where I used to hang out as an undergraduate. The real one was very different. All the art in it contained a particularly foul profane word, in some form--it seemed to be a prerequisite for getting your art displayed there. And there was loud techno music, and it was open really late.

The Sidewalk Cafe in the strip is a more conventional sort of coffee house, like the ones I frequent now. Actually, in hindsight, it really should have had a terrible pun for a name, like so many other coffee shops. They all seem to have names like "Grounds For Coffee" or "Bean There, Done That." (Any nominations?)

The final panel in this strip originally had a caption at the top. I forget what it was. Then someone pointed out that it was completely superfluous. It's quite clear what Ozy is doing without my spelling it out. Sometimes cartooning is the art of figuring that out.